Drizzly Lake Union Park

 

8/25/23 1904 Swiftsure docked at Lake Union

You can’t keep USk Seattle down with a little drizzle! OK, the drizzle eventually turned to rain, which I happily welcomed if it would clear away the smoke. In any case, we had a good time at Lake Union Park on Friday morning.

I found some cover that gave me a good view of the 1904 lightship Swiftsure, which I’ve sketched at least twice before – it’s hard to resist the red hull and yellow masts. My previous sketches were more detailed, but I don’t think I scaled the ship accurately either time. Standing fairly close, my goal was simply to scale it as accurately as possible on my small A6-size page. I still couldn’t get all of the center mast in, but I resisted drawing it shorter just to squeeze the top in.

By the time I finished, the drizzle had turned to rain, but that was when my walk around the park brought me to a view of the Space Needle. It’s apparently a mandatory subject for me whenever I see it.

8/25/23 Space Needle from Lake Union Park 
(Pentel Tradio Pullaman brush pen)

Pen note: I had just gotten a brand-new Pentel Tradio Pulaman brush pen the day before the USk outing, so I couldn’t resist grabbing it on the way out the door. Of course, I didn’t test the ink (or even read its features) to see if it was waterproof, which the rain tested immediately. No matter, though – it’s been a while since I used a water-soluble brush pen, and now that I know it is, I’ll have fun doing some washes with it.

According to JetPens, the Tradio has an “arrow-shaped tip” rather than a traditional brush tip. It makes a fairly good range of marks, though perhaps not as wide a range as some other hard-tip brush pens I’ve used. It might be better suited for calligraphy than sketching. In any case, I really like its stout, cigar-shaped body. Bonus: Unlike most brush pens I’ve been using, like my favorite Uni Pin and Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Fude Pen, the Tradio is refillable. I’ll write a full review once I see how long the tip lasts under the leaden weight of my drawing hand.

Oh, so this is where all the sketchers were hiding out to stay dry! 

Northwest Seaport’s 60th Anniversary (Plus Bi-Bim-Bap)

 

6/15/24 Lake Union Park historic ships

Although the weather gods teased us with dire forecasts of rain, hail, lightning and thunder, they took mercy on USk Seattle last Saturday – windy but dry to the end! A good turnout of brave sketchers showed up for the 60^th anniversary celebration of Northwest Seaport Maritime Heritage Center, which preserves and restores historic work ships on Lake Union.

To capture a survey of ships, I made small sketches of the historic tug Comanche, the Fremont Tugboat’s Dixie, and the lightship Swiftsure. Painted red, the 120-year-old Swiftsure is always popular among sketchers. In fact, I’ve sketched it myself several times, but this time I wanted a tall, narrow view to fit the space on my page spread, so I focused on the mast. (My current comics-like approach helped me see a composition I might not have chosen otherwise.)

6/15/24 Stone Korean Restaurant

After the outing, I joined a few sketchers for lunch at nearby Stone Korean Restaurant. Although I’ve had traditional bi-bim-bap, in general, I don’t eat Korean food often, so many dishes were new to me, like the delicious veggie pancake that the table shared. For my entrée, I chose a hot pot-style bi-bim-bap with crispy, toasted rice on the bottom – very different from regular bi-bim-bap and so delicious! Served in a dangerously hot cast iron pot, the food stayed hot for the duration of my sketch – an ideal sketch-meal!

I was so ignorant of Korean foods that another sketcher accused me of not being Asian, but now that she has educated me, I’m looking forward to enjoying more Korean meals.

Double Redux at MOHAI

4/14/17 ink, colored pencils

Although we knew it would be iffy, we had planned this week’s Urban Sketchers Seattle outing for Lake Union Park. That way, if the weather wasn’t on our side, we could duck into the Museum of History and Industry. True to predictions, it stayed dry all day, but that stiff, cold lake wind was more than I could bear.

Since I still had my pink colored pencil in my bag from sketching cherry blossoms, I decided to put it to good use once more – on the Lincoln Toe Truck. Pink + nostalgia: Who could resist? It’s one of my favorite old-time Seattle icons at MOHAI. Four years ago when the newly refurbished museum reopened, the Toe Truck was the first thing I had sketched there. Then a year or so later I sketched it again with USk Seattle.

The bitter wind was no warmer by the time I finished, but that bright blue sky was so inviting. . . I wanted to sketch outdoors. I wandered around the museum until I reached the café, where most of the other sketchers had already found cups of coffee to sketch by. I pulled a chair up to a window facing the Swiftsure, the bright red Coast Guard lightship moored on Lake Union. Once again, it was an icon I’d sketched at least a couple of times before – with the Regional Sketchcrawl three years ago and then again when Chandler O’Leary taught an urban sketching workshop in 2015.

4/14/17 ink, colored pencils

(Technical note: When sketching the Swiftsure, I tried something I very rarely do. First, for the ship’s body, I drew the contour in ink as I usually do – that part wasn’t different. But instead of drawing the masts, rigging and other details with ink as I normally would, I went in with a yellow colored pencil first, then used black ink afterwards only for shading and emphasis. In my own colored pencil way, this is similar to the method some watercolor sketchers use of making large shapes with paint first, then delineating some parts afterwards. I can’t “paint” large shapes with colored pencils, but this technique did keep me from getting too fussy with details as I’m tempted to do when I have a fountain pen in my hand.)

Although neither icon was new to me, I tried to look at each with fresh eyes. It’s fun and interesting to look back at my old sketches to see how my eyes have changed each time.

Regional Sketchcrawl at MOHAI on Opening Day

5/3/14 Platinum Carbon and Diamine Grey inks, watercolor,
Zig markers, Canson XL 140 lb. paper

“It always rains on Opening Day of boating season.”

A friend who is an avid boater told me that many years ago, and so far, she has been right more often than not about every first Saturday of May. After an unseasonably warm and sunny week, right on cue, it rained today on all the boaters and people watching the parade of boats.

I had been looking forward to joining the regional Urban Sketchers outing this morning at the Museum of History and Industry, where the Portland USk group had gathered to see Gabi Campanario’s “Drawn to Seattle”exhibit before it closes in a few weeks. But since I’ve sketched inside MOHAI several times the past few months, I really wanted to sketch something outdoors today.

It was still barely spitting when I started this sketch of the Swiftsure, a 110-year-old lightship moored on Lake Union right outside MOHAI, and the clouds were thin enough that I could even catch a few shadows. But the raindrops got bigger by the minute, so I ducked under an overhang to finish painting. Eventually it started raining hard enough that I went inside with most of the other sketchers, who had found windows to sketch through.

When we shared sketchbooks, we found that almost every one of us had sketched one of the many ships moored outside MOHAI – an appropriate subject for Opening Day.